Almost all organizations of significant size receive numerous telephone calls which must be appropriately handled based on the desires of the caller. This handling or routing is generally performed by human or automated call routing systems. Information is received from the caller, and the call is directed based on the information received. Human operators typically perform this function accurately and efficiently, but at a relatively high cost. Automated systems of the prior art typically employ hierarchical menus in which a caller is confronted with a list of choices from which to select. The caller typically selects menu options by making entries from a telephone keypad. Often, making a choice opens up a menu of further choices. In complex organizations, the menu hierarchy can be quite elaborate, requiring several choices by a caller, and requiring a caller to listen to an elaborate menu in order to understand the available choices. Such menus are a widespread cause of caller dissatisfaction with automated routing systems.
A direct, natural language call routing system, in which a caller asks for a specific destination or describes a function to be performed, would greatly simplify the call routing process, but significant obstacles to such a system exist. Callers typically phrase their requests by giving a destination name, by describing the activity they would like to perform, or else they have difficulty in formulating their requests, and instead provide a roundabout description of what they would like to do. Sometimes the destination name given is ambiguous, in that the organization may have several organizations falling under a similar heading. For example, a request for `women's clothing` may be appropriately routed to `women's formal clothing` or `women's casual clothing` in an organization having such departments but no overarching destination `women's clothing`. In such an instance, a routing system must determine which of the two destinations is appropriate.
A description of an activity may include words relevant to more than one area in the organization, or may describe a task to be performed with the assistance of two or more destinations in the organization. For example, a request to `check the balance on my car loan and make a payment from my checking account` describes functions to be performed by a loan department and a checking department of a bank. An automated system must choose a proper first destination to which to route the call.
A roundabout explanation of a desired activity may be too difficult for an automated routing system to resolve. A routing system should be able to recognize a response beyond its capacity, and then route the call to a human operator.
In prior art call routing systems, voice recognition, when it is used, is typically used to substitute for keypad entries. That is, the caller is allowed to voice a number as an alternative to making a keypad entry. The caller is not typically able to describe his desired function to an automated system and have the automated system direct the call according to the description. As presently used in call routing systems, therefore, automated voice recognition does little to simplify the process.
There exists, therefore, a need in the art for a call routing system which can receive voice inputs from a caller and process the voice inputs directly to route a call.